Kev’s Bollocks

Rip It Up, Issue 219, 1 November 1995, Page 8

Kev’s Bollocks

Kevin List, regarding you review in September’s RIU of Fear Factory’s album Demanufacture: Uh, how to put it... urn, load of bollocks is probably as good as anything. If you don’t like Fear Factory, that’s fine, but it’s the way you conducted your review that is so unsatisfactory. Firstly, by hammering away at the ‘boring/robotic/industrialised/repetition’ theme all review, you pretty much show you’ve missed the point. The overall sound being perfectly constructed and being, basically, heavy as shit is, to you, a bad thing. However, surprisingly enough, that’s what a large number of metal fans are quite keen on. The technical skill and precision with which every song has been planned and then recorded is, to my mind, damn impressive, and worthy of moderate applause, at least. The vocals are excellent: one part aggressive, and superior to many ‘growlers’ in the metal field, and, alternatively, sometimes in a gothic vein, melodic and, as you said yourself, sweet.

I am happy as Larry to agree with you about the lyrical content. This is often rather silly, and certainly inferior to the intelligently portrayed, antiestablishment sentiments of other recently released albums, such as Death’s Symbolic or Machine Head’s debut CD. But, as a friend of mine said, sometimes lyrical shortfalls can be forgotten in the joyous overall onslaught of an otherwise storming album. Also, you could have mentioned the fact there are many downright catchy and melody-riddled segments of music, such as the excellent Head of David cover, ‘Dog Day Sunrise’, or the gothic end track, ‘A Therapy for Pain’. As somebody involved in Christchurch’s metal

show (Cacophony, on the student radio station RDU), I know, from [experiencing] the masses of people who ring for requests each night, Fear Factory is (with Machine Head and, to a lesser extent, Pantera) the ‘sound of now’. I feel Christchurch listeners know what they’re on about. Basically, as Jimi B said to John Russell once, this isn’t personal, but if you are going to review heavy acts, then you should show some knowledge and appreciation of what fellow fans value. I mean, you practically bollocked the FNM gig, you likened Fear Factory to Shihad; and after your treatment of FF — where does that leave Shihad with you? Worst of all, when praising Human a couple of months back, you chose to compliment them by saying they would've probably been superior to Body Count. Wow. I’ve seen sausages in packs of 12 that could play a more constructive metal show than ‘tha Count’. Anyway, try not to get too angry. Geoff Dunn reviewed the Fight CD with apparent enjoyment and understanding, so perhaps he should up his workload. Buck Satan, Christchurch.